Stumbling on a Blessing (a.k.a Remy the Really, Really Good Painter)

Blessings are good right? That's a dumb question. Of course blessings are good. Just the word carries positive connotations. I'd even say that most of us are fairly grateful for the blessings we've already received. After some discussion at Sunday school today however, I'm wondering if we can begin to stumble over our blessings. I'm thinking that we can let our blessings alter our attitude, prevent us from participating in open fellowship and prevent us from fully communing with the Lord.

To better illustrate my thoughts (and mostly for my own amusement) I'm going to use a fictional story about "Remy, the Really, Really Good Painter".

Remy lived in a community of painters. Some were admittedly really poor painters, some were average painters and some were pretty good painters. There were a couple that were really good painters. However, God blessed Remy and made him a really, really good painter.

Remy knew that God had blessed him with this gift. He was thankful for it too. People paid more money for his paintings and so he had a nicer house. He got a lot of publicity for his paintings and so everyone knew his name and complimented him on his work. He also had a number of beautiful paintings to decorate his home and to give to people as gifts. Yup, Remy was one blessed dude. However, Remy didn't always know what to do with such a big blessing. He didn't always know it, but sometimes it caused him problems.

 Remy was a genuinely good guy, so he had lots of friends. One day he was painting with his friends. Some of his friends had finger paintings, some had paintings made for calendars, but Remy - his painting was fit for the Louvre. Everyone gathered around it. "Wow, Remy, that's a really, really, good painting! That's incredible!" Remy knew that it was a really, really good painting but like most people in the community Remy valued humility and he didn't want to seem boastful so he contained his smile and just said, "thanks, but it's not a big deal, I don't really care about this one". His friends turned to sheepishly put their only half-decent paintings away.

Remy's friends would often ask him to help them with their paintings. After he helped them perfect a certain brush stroke or get the shadowing just right his friends would say "Remy, thanks very much for helping me. I really appreciate it." Again, Remy didn't want to seem prideful so instead of saying "you're welcome" or "glad I could help" he got into the habit of saying "no worries" or "not a problem". A few of his friends became more hesitant to ask for his help.

One day, Remy and his friends were sitting in the coffee shop discussing painting. His friends were lamenting about how they often had difficulties mixing the colour hyacinth purple. Sometimes they used too much red or other times not enough blue. Remy didn't have any trouble mixing hyacinth. He was having trouble lately mixing lagoon green though. It was becoming troublesome that he couldn't quite get it the way he wanted. He figured he couldn't really complain though - after all he wasn't having the issues with hyacinth that the others were having. So when his buddy asked, "Remy, are you having any problems with your painting?" Remy answered, "I can't complain, I'm very blessed." Soon his friends began to worry that maybe they couldn't relate to Remy anymore or maybe he didn't trust them with his problems anymore.

Remy was excited when he read the tender for the commission of a painting for a The Snazzy Yacht Club. If he was chosen it would bring in enough money to pay off the mortgage on his parents house and have a enough left over for him to build a studio, or maybe a painting school! He put in his application. However, when he knelt to pray before bed that night he decided not to ask God for the blessing of receiving the commission. He felt that would be selfish. God had already blessed him soooo much, especially with his talent for painting. Remy didn't get the commission.

The next day Remy ran into his church pastor at the local Art Gallery. "Hey Remy, how did you ever get that commission for The Snazzy Yacht Club?"
"No I didn't actually," said Remy.
"Oh, that's too bad. I supposed God decided to answer that prayer with a 'no' then eh?" Said the pastor who was a bit odd and had a habit of making awkward statements.
"I didn't talk to God about it," admitted Remy. "I thought it would be selfish to ask God for more blessings on top of the ones he's already given me."
"Hmmm," the pastor paused. "Well Remy, let me ask you this - If you heard a child asking their parent to feed them supper, even though the parent fed them supper the night before, and the night before that - would you think that child was selfish?"
"No, of course not," said Remy.
"Well Remy, remember you are a child of God."
Remy raised his eyebrows and nodded as he considered what the pastor's reminder. "I've never thought of it that way. I never considered that I could let my blessing get in the way with talking to God."

Remy began to consider where else his blessings were causing him to stumble. . .

~***~

So that's Remy the Really, Really Good Painter. Like I said I was thinking about this today as a few of us were discussing how sometimes we don't ask God for something, or we feel bad about asking God for something because we've already received so many blessings. We forget that God wants us to tell Him everything and that he wants to give us good things. Later on I began to think on what other issues could arise from our blessings.

The first and most obvious one I thought of was pride. It begins when we forget that we are nothing without God and start taking the credit for ourselves. However, we all know that arrogance and boasting is bad, so I moved on to thinking about things that might not be so obvious.

If feeling we're overly blessed could keep us from talking to God and keeping fellowship with Him then it could probably keep us from open fellowship with our friends. We don't want to sound like we're ungrateful and complaining so we don't open up to our friends about our day-to-day trials. We forget that there's a difference between complaining to our friends and open discussion and mutual support from our friends - especially when we face the same or similar issues. There can also be more humility in accepting a compliment with a simple thank you or accepting a thank you with a simple "you're welcome" than there is with trivializing it.

It was a new thought to me that even when God gives us a great blessing we run the possibility of stumbling while we strive to be humble and grateful for that same blessing. Just thought I'd share my thoughts. What do you think?

A Free Gift from The King: Part 3

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. -Ephesians 2:9, The New Testament (NLT version)

In the last post I did my best to explain simply and quickly how it is that we are saved from death. That it is because of our faith that God gives us the free gift of salvation, forgiving us our sins and making us new. Like I said, I can say that with all confidence. I stake my life on it.

What I didn't talk about in the last post is the debate about how "good works" fit into the picture. These would be considered the actions that make us "good people"; freely giving what we have to offer and practicing the virtues (patience, humility, love, kindness, etc). Honestly, this isn't what I want to talk about in this post, so I'm going to give my opinion with scripture and leave it at that for now so we can move on. I just think its a bit neglectful to write on justification by faith without talking about works.

I believe that "good works" are the result of your love for Christ. They are the fruits of being a Christ-follower, not the qualifications, because as I have been trying to explain, there is no way we "qualify" for God's grace by our actions. Salvation and good works to me go hand-in-hand, they cannot be separated. When you love God you want to do good works because you know it makes God happy and that in turn makes you happy. I don't want to say it's always the most natural thing to do, but every time we put away our own desires to help someone else we spiritually grow into more mature followers.

"And since it is through God's kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God's work  would not be what it really is - free and undeserved."

Romans 11: 5-7

"What good is it dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, "Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well" - but then you don't give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless."

James 2: 14-17

What I really want to discuss is how we lose our salvation. Actually, I don't want to even talk about the "how" part. I want to talk about the "we" part. I get this sense every once in awhile that Christians have this image of God coming down from Heaven with a fiery fist and taking the gift of their salvation away from them when they take a hard spiritual fall. Frankly, this just hasn't sat well with me, and I didn't figure out why until a little awhile ago.

God cannot be untrue to Himself. He will follow through with everything He has decreed because He is truth. He cannot be contrary. This is why He goes to the effort of creating covenants with us and why He had to give His son to save us from death, instead of just wiggling a finger and making the price of sin a life lived out with turkeys instead of eternal death. God is truth.

Therefore, God will not come down and take away salvation from you because you screwed up. Why? because God has given us a gift - a thing given willingly to someone without payment. Furthermore, He has told us that we are completely underserving of that gift, there is nothing we could do to deserve it.

Therefore, if salvation is a gift and there was nothing you could do to deserve it, then there is nothing you could do that could warrant God taking it away from you. First, because you don't take back a gift - otherwise it wouldn't be a gift. Secondly because if you didn't deserve it in the first place you can't really sink any lower, can you? Rest assured, it will not be God that causes you to lose your salvation.

However, let me be clear that you can lose your salvation. The operative word in that sentence is "lose" mind you. I am confident that God will not take the gift of salvation from you. However, once someone gives you a gift, they trust you to look after it and take care of it. If you lose that gift you're out of luck. This is how people lose their salvation. They might set it down for a bit and forget where they left it. They may lock it up and try to forget about it. They might let someone else take it away from them or they might drop it somewhere due to carelessness. Some have even sold it for material things.

You need to carry your salvation with you all of the time. You need to do maintenance on it and you need to be thankful that you have such a gift. As I was trying to illustrate in the allegory, if the King calls you home and you don't have the keys (the gift of salvation) on you, you're not going to be able to get in.

So you see, I'm very confident that you and you alone are responsible for the free gift that God gives you. He won't take it away. He loves you! He desperately wants you to be with Him. He has made you right in His eyes by the death of his son and has adopted you into the family. Of course He's not going to determine you're a moron undeserving of salvation because you made a mistake! When He sees you've lost your gift He cries and desperately wants you to go back and look for it, to find it again, polish it up, wear it with humility and talk to Him. He is your Father. He wants to do good things for you if you would accept His gift, look after it, and be ready to come home when He calls.

And we never know when that call is going to come.

A Free Gift from The King: Part 1

Once upon a time, in a beautiful kingdom, there was a young prince who was not particularly well-behaved. He was rude to the servants, brushed off his responsibilities, was always late and made fun of the disfigured. He didn't care too much about his title or his kingdom because he had older brothers and sisters who were all very responsible and who would inherit the kingdom. He would never have the glory or the riches that came with being a king. In fact he hardly ever bothered to speak to his father the King and he pretty much figured that his father didn't give a hoot about him or what he did.

Until one day, while he was relaxing under a tree, pondering what to do with all of his spare time he thought he heard his father calling for him. He ignored the call at first, annoyed that he should be bothered. Then after awhile he began to wonder what the old man wanted. It felt as though he hadn't seen his father in ages. With a sigh he got up and went to look for his father. He wasn't in the throne room. The Prince felt like giving up the search right then. After all, if it was so important, his father should just come and tell him so. But just then he met his older sister who said she could show him where to find their father. Why not? thought the Prince, I was bored anyway. He let his sister guide him out into the Royal Garden. She pointed him in the direction of their father who the young Prince could now see sitting on an ornate bench surrounded by vines with huge blossoming golden flowers. In the King's lap was a small mirrored box, reflecting rays of sun onto his father's aged face. The King turned then, and seeing his son in the garden he ran to his son, laughing and holding him in a warm embrace. The Prince was a bit stunned - he didn't remember his Father being so loving or so full of joy.

"Come son, sit beside me here in the garden, I want to speak to you," said the King as he motioned the Prince to sit on the bench to his right. "Son, let's not beat around the bush," said the King. I love you. I love you more than you could ever imagine and it has broken my heart not to have you near me. I want to give you the most valuable thing I have. I want to give you the keys to the Kingdom. I want you to rule by my side." The King handed the little mirrored box to the young Prince.

The Prince was absolutely stunned. He had come to the garden expecting to maybe just catch up with the old man, probably get scolded at worst. However, now his father wanted him, the least deserving of the family to inherit the Kingdom. This must be a joke, he thought. He caught his reflection in the top of the mirrored box and for the first time he really saw himself clearly and he was saddened by how he was living.

"Father, you've got to be kidding me. You must not have any idea of what I have done," said the Prince.

"Sure I do," said the King. You've lied and cheated, you've been selfish, prideful and rude, you've been lustful, crude, uncaring. You've been petty and you've held hate in your heart. You have hurt others and you have disrespected even me. I know you don't deserve what I'm giving you, but frankly, there's nothing you could have done to deserve a gift this awesome. I hate what you have done in the past, but I love you and I can forgive everything you've done. All you have to do is accept my gift to you. I promise you that I mean it son. I. love. you. Do you believe me?"

The Prince was amazed that this was happening to him, but his father was speaking with such sincerity and such overwhelming love that the Prince knew he was speaking the truth.
"Yes father, I believe you. I will accept the keys to the Kingdom. But father, please, I have not learned how to live like a good son and prince. If it pleases you, allow me to leave the kingdom and travel to the far, far away places where I can meet people and learn how to be a good servant so that I will return knowing how to be a good ruler. I want to tell everyone I meet along the way of the wonderful gift you have given me."

The King pondered this for a moment. "Son, that is a very honourable request. The keys to the Kingdom are yours and they are freely given to you. I will never seek to take them away from you. Hold them close to your heart and through them you and I will always be able to hear and speak to each other. However, when you venture into the far, far away lands you will encounter many dangers. If you lack vigilance you may lose the keys, or there may be people who would seek to take them from you. Remember too that the farther away you are from the Kingdom the heavier the keys become and you may become tired and stumble. Above all things, remember that the day will come when I will summon you back to the Kingdom. If you arrive at the gates without the keys you will be locked out forever, stuck wandering the far, far away lands. Please son, be careful. You belong here with me."

So the Prince set out to learn how to lead by serving others. Even though he traveled in joy and faith he was beset by some troubles in the far, far away lands. But that is a story for another time. . .

The End.

"Make my Day"

I feel that God has put it in my heart to write about this right now - I think this because I can’t seem to fall asleep, so I figured God wants me to put this to paper now. I’m thinking about how every day we have a free gift that we can give to other people. Well, maybe not free, because we may have to put our own wishes or feelings or problems aside in order to give it I suppose. But it’s free, as in you won’t have to go the store to search and pay for it, type of free. 

I didn't really have a picture for this post.
But she's cute - so she'll do.

Every day, we have the power to make someone’s day - or at least a part of their day. Seriously! I think we are totally under-valuing this power. Just think about it - you can affect someone else’s life for the better every. single. day. You can even do it numerous times a day. 

Sadly, I didn’t really figure this out until last summer when I had my revelation of sorts. But now that I have realized this power I feel I have a responsibility to give this gift and I enjoy the feeling I get in return from giving it. I also feel shame on the days when I could have chosen to give this gift but didn’t because I was in a bad mood, or was preoccupied by thoughts and worries or because I was being selfish or because I wasn’t feeling well. Why? Because it would have only taken me a pittance of time, of focus, of love and caring to do it. 

Now I’m not talking about being a saint, or a martyr or any of those overwhelming words. I just mean taking a small amount of time to touch someone’s day. Like asking how the cashier’s day is going and doing it with sincerity. Being brave enough to compliment a stranger when it strikes you. Smiling at people - just smiling because why the heck not? Pausing to give directions, and when it looks like they don’t get it, taking a few moments longer to write them down, and when they still seem unsure, taking a few moments longer to let them follow you in your vehicle as you lead them. How about tipping your waitress a bit more than usual, even if she didn’t do an extraordinary job. One special thing that has always made my day is when I’m in the drive-thru for an ice cap and when I pull up to the window to pay they give me my drink and tell me that the people ahead of me already paid for it with the message “have a good day” or “pay it forward”. All these small things that have the potential to make someone feel better about the confusing world we live in - even if it’s only for a few minutes. 

I am fortunate that I work in a field where I get to interact with people every day. I’m trying to realize that I have the privilege of making someone feel better, even if it’s not necessarily with medicine. How I enter the room, whether it’s an emergency or a simple transfer, can set the tone for the patient’s entire experience. If I can come in with positive energy, a reassuring smile, introduce myself and ask with sincerity how they are feeling today I believe I can really improve that patient’s situation. If I can try my best to create a rapport with my patient and really listen to them then they might leave me feeling refreshed - the same way I feel refreshed after having a really good conversation with someone. If I can use my small stature, little voice, bubbly-ness and a dose of humility to get a chuckle out of a patient then that should be the least I can do for them.

Then why is it so hard to do that sometimes? When I’m having a less-than-stellar day it can just seem like people are so annoying or mean or stupid or clueless! I don’t really want to look at them, much less try and make their day better. I just want to focus on me. I’m trying to remember that when I’m having one of these less-than-stellar days, I’m at risk for the less-than-stellar part of my nature to negatively impact my friendships, my family, my coworkers, my patients, etc. There are times, when I’m in one of those moods, all that it takes is another person just trying to better my day in a small way. Sometimes that’s enough to snap me out of it. I’m also learning that often it takes more.

I remember when I was about half-way through final practicum I came to my site for the beginning of my shift knowing that I was in a miserable mood. I had a really good site, and a really good preceptor and had been fortunate that up until that day I’d been a pleasant and easy-going student that was well-liked by the staff. But that evening, as I was alone doing the routine check of the ambulance I knew that I was grouchy, and that I could not afford to be grouchy when my paramedic future was riding on this practicum. So there, as I sat in the airway chair staring at a bag full of drugs for what felt like the gazillionth time I tried something I hadn’t done before. I prayed to God to take away my wretchedness and replace it with his grace. You might think this is silly, but for me I realized it as a miracle right away because just then, two staff members walked in and instead of shutting them out or being curt with them, God gave me a warm heart and sincerity in my speech and we were soon laughing over one of many outrageous stories you would only hear on an ambulance. If God can grant me that when I ask, then I need to be asking more often. 

The other thing I need to be doing more often is telling people when they have blessed me. I just think, if I knew when I was really making a difference in someone’s day I think I might be all the more motivated to try to be a blessing to others. I should tell the waitress that she made my day when she remembered my “usual” even though I hadn’t been there in months. I should tell the sales representative that I really appreciated that they went the extra mile to help me get that deal. I need to take the time to sincerely return the thanks that patients will sometimes give for my service in this industry, instead of just brushing it off as “no big deal”. You should know that when you take the time to comment on this blog it encourages me to keep writing. I want to tell my work partner that when he indulges me in one of our deeper conversations it is often the best conversation that I have all week. I want those people that think to invite me to their home for dinner, or to a volleyball game to know that I look forward to it every time and being part of the family means so much to me. I’m only just beginning to fathom the power we have to be a blessing to other people. I hope you see it too!

“If the world is cold, make it your business to build fires”

-Horace Traubel